#4 and #7 are a product of me wanting to just get it out there in any form
Those two levels are really only there to test specific enemy movement options. The final levels should be less douche-y.
#6 - to go past that screen you can hit return. I had made it any key but was asked to make it return only. We need a better way to handle that.

Unfortunately, there is still a lot of polish to do, and no time left to do it. I'm doing my best to balance getting something, anything out there and putting in the effort to really polish it. I'm a little worried we're going to end up with a great concept, poorly executed. I'm making excuses, but this was the worst possible three months to try and make a game in for me. Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue

I'm going to completely rewrite the menu screen, as that needs the most love. Then I'll work on the between level cutscenes to match the comps (again requiring a rewrite due to changing requirements), then hook up Saga to show some sort of story screen. All that while trying to find time to make levels that don't suck.
Tell my family I love them

Here is short version...
Doug: Let's make a simple shooter from the 80s.. because we are two old guys
Carlos: Good idea. I know people.
Doug: Here is design doc.. Kill stuff, save universe
Carlos: Umm.. well, I have this epic saga, full of mythology, endless plot lines, a cast of a thousand. I'm sure we will be the next ILM. iDGers expect nothing less of us.
Doug: Umm.. OK.

Newest build has been posted. It's starting to look like a real game.
The first level is close to what we have in mind. The second level is another test and all the levels after that are placeholder levels that have the "douche-y" game mechanics.
We know about the gap in the music loop for the dialog screen.
We know the asteroids in the first level have a funny white border.

I appreciate the work you guys did on it, but man is that story verbose. I had a hard time paying attention to it because it was so disconnected with what was happening with the gameplay. It would be nice if "start" button said "continue" if you are not going to start on the first level when you die. There is also kind of an obnoxious amount of time where you can't do anything after you die while the death screen and effect comes in- I just want to keep playing!

The 3D feels kind of strange because it appears that things move the same speed in 2d when far or close, though in reality you'd see things going much faster in the foreground. The first starfield on that first asteroid level which is only 2d feels very odd but it looks at the later levels it's fixed. It looks like the explosions are always the same size in 2d which also feels weird when you kill enemies 'farther away' than you are.

On the later levels I actually found out that if you just sit there and don't press any buttons you can just cruise without any danger. You guys would do well do emulate the enemy patterns from the original game, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF2m7EW9_lM The original designer actually appears to have just mapped Galaga into a circle, which solves the wrapping problem Galaga had (that is, if you're stuck on the side of the map you are not screwed.) A lot of the danger comes from enemies shooting or flying directly at you instead of just accidentally bumping into you due to their patterns. Of course that is just a game design preference- the point is just that what you have is a little too easy.

>it was so disconnected with what was happening with the gameplay
I will have to see what others say... The story goes right along with the gameplay if you read it to the end.

Basically
#1 talk about training
>Train
#1 talk about those ships just showed up during the training

#2 Get sent off to far flung location
Fight at far flung location
#2 Angry that they couldn't do more
and so on...

What we might need to do is make the chapter's name larger to make it more obvious things are moving along. It is a fine balance to explain what the story is, what is happening and why, without writing every single detail that a book would have.. which would make this a real point and click interactive novel.

But hey, give us credit for a story in a shooter... beyond the typical, you are mankind's last hope. Kill the invaders.

Probably in the future, some of the dialog will go in some HUD during game play.

I'm wondering if you are playing latest version? An earlier version had levels 2 or 3 to the end the same text.

> you can't do anything after you die while the death screen and effect comes in- I just want to >keep playing!
That is the 'screen of death'. Doug will be fixing it.

>On the later levels I actually found out that if you just sit there and don't press any buttons you >can just cruise without any danger.
Funny you should say that, I JUST emailed Doug the same point.

The story of the game makes your entry stand out, which is always a good thing.
I pulled the new version from the uDevGames site and I noticed the collision detection is really iffy on the second level (which is now a bunch of rotating ships of the same type that come at you.) It seems to get less accurate the closer the ship is to you, so maybe the collision is not scaling with the visual scale. The best way I found to repro this is to not spam bullets but shoot them slowly one at a time, and every now and then the bullet would appear to go completely through a ship without hitting it.

Since it's really hard to be 100% accurate, collision should err on the favor of the player so that things that could damage you have slightly smaller collision than their actual representation, and things that you damage have slightly bigger collision than their actual representation when colliding with bullets.

I'd like to public thank Doug for his great effort in the game. As I mentioned earlier, we started with the concept of a simple old school game. As time went by, I dropped more and more story on him. He was buried with story, art and feature request. I can't say anything about the code, but I get a sense that when he coded, he did so elegantly. Many things to cover in our postmortem. We hope the game is well received. It's a shame we couldn't get in the 10 levels of the game and had to settle for 6 (or should I say 5.5? : I'm looking forward to expanding on the game, the story is crazy deep and sets up nicely for a sequel and third installment. Watch for it at some point in the App store, and be sure to buy our Z1 Tshirts, Z1 Posters, Z1 novel, Z1 graphic novel. Yes, we need to squeeze this baby to pay for Doug's new multi-million dollar house and I also need the funds to purchase the Everton Football club.